How will this year be? Most of us don’t have a crystal ball, but Chinese Astrology is a very accurate way of looking back at the past to get clues as to how the patterns and forces of the Stem and Branch of the year influence the events of that year. Of course, sixty years have passed since this previous time, and everything that happened during that sixty years will have an influence on today. But over the millennia, the ancients found there were repeatable patterns with significant shifts every twenty years, and also a major shift every 180 years.

POLITICS
January 12–Lyndon B. Johnson, 36th US President, claims that the US should stay in South Vietnam until the communist aggression ends.
January 17–Martin Luther King Jr. opens his campaign in Chicago. His campaign involved moving to a building in the slums of North Lawndale as an educational experience, as well as to show their support and empathy for the poor.
January 13– President Lyndon B. Johnson appoints the first African American cabinet, Robert C. Weaver head of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
February 15 – The U.S. Embassy in Athens, Greece comes under mortar fire.
May 13–Educational funding is denied to 12 school districts in the South of American because of violations of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
May 20 – Gay rights – Romer v. Evans: The Supreme Court of the United States rules against a law that prevents any city, town or county in the state of Colorado from taking any legislative, executive, or judicial action to protect the rights of homosexuals.
June 1–The White House Conference on Civil Rights is attended by 2,400 people.
July 1–Medicare in the US takes effect.
September 3 – Iraq disarmament crisis: As Iraq continues to refuse inspectors access to a number of sites, the U.S. fails in its attempt to build support for military action against Iraq in the UN Security Council.[8]
The U.S. launches Operation Desert Strike against Iraq in reaction to the attack on Arbil in Iraqi Kurdistan.
October 6 – Jim Lehrer hosts the first presidential debate between Bob Dole and President Clinton.
November 8: Ronald Reagan is elected to be the Governor of California.

CULTURE
January 8–The Rubber Soul album by The Beatles, goes number 1 and stays at the top position for 6 weeks.
February 1 – Sundance Channel debuts.
February 2 – Frontier Middle School shooting: A gunman kills his algebra teacher and two other students in Moses Lake, Washington.
February 6 – 1996 Honolulu hostage crisis: A gunman takes hostages at his former place of employment in Honolulu, Hawaii.
March 3–Rock band, Buffalo Springfield, is formed.
March 15–Tom Jones and Barbara Streisand win at the 8th Grammy Awards.
March 16 – LPGA Tour golfer Muffin Spencer-Devlin comes out as gay in the pages of Sports March
March 25 – Illustrated magazine. She was the first LPGA player to come out.
April 30: The Church of Satan is founded by Anton LaVey in San Francisco, California.
May 6–Paint it Black by The Rolling Stones is released in the US.
July 14–8 nurses are raped and killed by Richard Speck in a Chicago dormitory.
July 25–Brian Jones performs with the Rolling Stones for the last time.
July 29–Bob Dylan is hurt in a motorbike accident in New York.
July 31–People in Alabama burn Beatles’ products in response to John Lennon’s anti-Jesus remark.
August 5–The Beatles release their Revolver album.
August 11–Last Beatles tour of the US begins.

August 16 – Binti Jua, a gorilla, saves a three-year-old boy who fell into the 20 foot (6.1 m) deep gorilla enclosure at Brookfield Zoo, Chicago.
August 19 – The invasive species Asian long-horned beetle is found in New York.[6]
August 23 – Osama bin Laden writes “The Declaration of War on the Americans Occupying the Country of the Two Sacred Places,” a call for the removal of American military forces from Saudi Arabia.
September 5–Jerry Lewis’ first Muscular Dystrophy Labour Day raises $1 million.
September 8–Star Trek premieres.
September 21:–Jimi Hendrix changes his name from Jimmy, to Jimi.
September 22–413 fans show up at the Yankee Stadium for a game.
October 7-The Fox News Channel is launched on U.S. cable systems.
November 9–John Lennon and Yoko Ono meet at an art exhibition in London.
November 18–In the US, Roman Catholic bishops end the rule against eating meat on Fridays.

BUSINESS
March 4 – DISH Network, a Direct Broadcast Satellite service, begins as a service of EchoStar.
October 4 – Discovery Science debuts.

DISASTERS
February 16 – 1996 Maryland train collision: A Chicago-bound Amtrak train, the Capitol Limited, collides with a MARC commuter train bound for Washington, D.C., killing 11 people.
April 3 – A Boeing 737 military jet crashes into a mountain north of Dubrovnik, Croatia. All 35 people on board die, including United States Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown
May 11 – After takeoff from Miami, Florida, a fire started by improperly handled oxygen canisters in the cargo hold of Atlanta-bound ValuJet Flight 592, causes the Douglas DC-9 to crash in the Florida Everglades, killing all 110 on board.
November 21 – A propane explosion at the Humberto Vidal shoe store and office building in San Juan, Puerto Rico kills 33
An ice storm strikes the U.S., killing 26 directly and hundreds more from accidents. A powerful windstorm blasts Florida; winds gust to 90 miles per hour (140 km/h).

HEALTH
January 1–All cigarette packs in the US have to carry, by law, the words “Caution, cigarette smoking may be hazardous to your health.”

SCIENCE
March 31– USSR launches Luna 10.
September 22: Surveyor 2 crashes on the moon.
November 7 – NASA launches the Mars Global Surveyor.
November 12– Buzz Aldrin takes the first ‘space selfie’. The photo includes himself performing extravehicular activity during the Gemini programme.
November 15–Gemini XII returns to Earth, with Jim Lovell and Buzz Aldrin.
November 19 – STS-80: Space Shuttle Columbia conducts the longest mission of the Space Shuttle program.

EARTH CHANGES
January 7 – One of the worst blizzards in American history hits the eastern states, killing more than 150 people.
January 19 – The North Cape oil spill occurs as an engine fire forces the tugboat Scandia ashore on Moonstone Beach in South Kingstown, Rhode Island.
May 30 – The Hoover Institution releases an optimistic report that global warming will probably reduce mortality in the United States and provide Americans with valuable benefits.